Ira Asserts It Is Committed To Peace In Northern Ireland

Huge Arms Caches Provide Reason To Fear A Breakdown

BELFAST — The Irish Republican Army on Saturday said it was committed to the flagging Northern Ireland peace process but would not be bullied into disarming.

The IRA took the unusual step of putting out a statement as pro-British Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble met Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams amid efforts to save Northern Ireland's home rule government. Neither would comment after the meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes.

The guerrilla group said it believed the current crisis could be averted and the disarmament issue resolved, but not on British or Protestant Unionist terms.

"The IRA has never entered into any agreement, undertaking or understanding at any time with anyone on any aspect of decommissioning. We have not broken our commitment or betrayed anyone," it said in a statement given to Irish Radio.

"The IRA believes that this crisis can be averted and the issue of arms can be resolved. This will not be on British or Unionist terms nor will it be advanced by British legislative threats," it added, referring to moves by London to suspend the 9-week-old coalition Cabinet of its powers Friday if the IRA doesn't promise to disarm.

The power of the IRA caches is made vivid in a display of seized weapons at a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks outside Belfast.

On a shelf is a booby-trapped candy tin meant to explode in the hands of a police officer. Nearby on the floor is a beer keg refigured as a bomb. Displayed on a small platform is the replica of a mortar fired at a patrol car. The photo behind the replica weapon is all too real: The blood of a policewoman forms a red pool beneath the car's smashed side.

Most, though not all, of Northern Ireland's illegal weapons are in the hands of the IRA, which has fought first for the freedom of Ireland and then for Northern Ireland from the British for most of the last century.

The IRA leadership has yet to say when, or if, it will turn in or destroy its weapons stockpile--one of the largest under paramilitary control in Europe--even though disarmament is a key provision of the 1998 peace agreement supported by the IRA and the IRA-allied Sinn Fein.

Even the savviest analysts have lately found it impossible to read the IRA's mind on the issue.

Some believe there is a serious split within the IRA. Others say disarmament will come more or less in time for a May peace agreement deadline; still others believe the IRA is unwilling to turn in a single weapon because this represents surrender in a war not yet lost.

"It's quite clear for anyone who has a grasp of republican history that this (disarmament) issue has never been tackled -- in 300 years of republican history there is no tradition, no history of this," said Sinn Fein spokesman Richard McCauley last week.

"You also have the fact that from an IRA perspective, it is an organization not defeated," he said. "It sued for peace. It maintained its cease-fire. The cessation has quite clearly maintained the peace process."

The IRA said last week in a statement reaffirming its cooperation: "(The) IRA's guns are silent and . . . there is no threat to the peace process from the IRA."

"Guns," though, stretches the definition a bit.

Though no one but the IRA itself knows the size of the stockpile, it is clear from seizures in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland over the years that the IRA possesses much heavy-duty weaponry--with enough firepower to shoot down planes, destroy tanks and blow up buildings and bridges.

"Certainly it is said that in Europe they are the best-equipped of any guerrilla army," said Sean Boyne, an Irish-based weapons expert with Jane's Intelligence Review. One estimate, he said, is that the IRA has enough weapons to equip two infantry battalions of 500 to 600 men.

One of the clues to the size of the IRA arsenal comes from the seizure in 1987 of a Libyan vessel with 150 tons of arms and explosives bound for IRA bunkers.

The weapons were being sent by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was angry at the British for letting U.S. planes use its bases to attack Libya.

Three other Libyan-arms delivery vessels escaped detection, though, and from those shipments it is estimated that the IRA retains about 600 AK-47 assault rifles, nearly 30 machine guns, more than 50 missiles, about 20 missile launchers and flame throwers, and dozens of hand grenades and pistols.

Including guns from other sources, it is estimated that the IRA has 1,000 assault rifles. The biggest collections of IRA weapons remain in sophisticated bunkers --called "dumps"--located mainly in the Republic of Ireland to the south, where local IRA members serve in a support role.

Security forces and arms experts say that the Libyans also gave the IRA 2.75 tons of the powerful plastic explosive Semtex.

Over the years, donations from sympathizers in the United States have provided the IRA with countless more weapons, mainly handguns.

Seizures show the group also is purchasing weapons from the Czech Republic, Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Disarmament also would not stop the construction of homemade weapons such as pipe bombs by the IRA or any other paramilitary groups.

Protestant paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are well-armed, too, but rely mainly on guns and don't usually resort to bombs.

The "loyalist" paramilitaries, which have far fewer weapons than the IRA, are expected to disarm rapidly if the IRA begins the disarmament process.